Chapter 9 – Vinculum
January 28th, 2532 - (19:22 Hours - Military Calendar)
Sol System, Earth
Australia, Old South Wales
(20 Years Ago)
:********:
Hot.
Cold.
From one extreme to the next, the temperamental weather in the vast plains of Old South Wales showed no preference for stability nor mercy. The Martian-like landscape absorbed heat into its sediment that burned away the soles of their boots bit by bit, step by step. Then, when they needed the heat, the sediment would release it and become cynically cold.
Overhead, the fiery eye of Sol drifted towards the horizon at their backs, ready to deprive them of the one thing they needed that had tortured them for hours already.
As they trudged up the dirt road, Carisa stopped to tug at the handles of her rucksack. The underpadding had pushed and pulled against her armpits for the past several hours straight. Unlike the day before, the group decided not to stop until they covered a few more kilometers. Carisa had little say in the matter. Though 185 and 186, or 'Brett' and 'Andy' as they were really called, were indeed part of her squad, Giana had more experience and so the decision to carry on for longer was given to her.
Giana made the call.
Not Carisa.
The words of the review board swam around in her head, buzzing for her attention. As the day drew on, she wondered about them. How true were they?
Looking ahead to Brett-185, she saw that he walked with a slight limp. He still held his MA5K carbine at the ready, sweeping the northern perimeter on their left for sings of movement. Andy-186 was an arm's length away, routinely checking the south with his own carbine. Giana was taking point. She scanned the route that would bring them where they needed to go. Her M6 shifted from left to right every few paces.
Carisa was left to guard the rear. It was arguably the most important post but not one they were too concerned about. She made a habit of peeking over her shoulder to check the road behind them rather than turning herself fully. That kind of energy prioritization was pointless in any other setting but absolutely critical in the outback. Doing too much when it wasn't necessary could leave her exhausted when it really mattered. Not that it seemed to matter now.
There was no sign of a threat for kilometers save that posed by the environment itself. Were it not for the dwarfish sandalwood trees and shrubs scattered here and there, there would be nothing to distinguish one square meter of orange earth from another. Everything would blend into a large, seemingly endless expanse that could have driven them mad if it weren't for the road.
Other than the minor sway of the trees, movement from beyond the road often drew a cautious eye or a gun barrel. What would stare back at them would typically be the local inhabitants.
Within the higher branches of the sandalwoods, the yellow, eerily wide eyes of barking owls tracked them. One that watched Carisa incidentally reminded her of Dimitri when it cocked its head at her, perhaps assessing whether she herself was a threat.
Mated pairs of bearded dragons peeked out of holes in the ground to watch them pass, duck back in before they got too close, then peek out again once they were further off, heads bobbing.
At one point, Brett called out a group of several bipedal animals to their north. They stopped to watch the mob of kangaroo leap and bound their way along the shrubby plains. At another point, Giana suddenly stopped them. They stood statuesque while a midnight-black snake with a brown underbelly and abyssal eyes slithered across the road ahead. Thanks to her environmental studies, Carisa immediately recognized it as an inland taipan. So did the others, which was why they understood to give it several meters of breathing room. The snake stopped halfway to coil itself together as if preparing to stand up. It lifted its head in their direction. Its forked tongue lashed out at the air for a moment before it returned to what it was doing. They gave it another minute to be sure it was gone then continued walking.
Their survival would be contingent on spotting such threats well in advance. Carisa wondered if their TTR rounds would be enough against some of the creatures whose neighborhoods they were stepping into. More than that, she wondered if they would be sufficient against actual bullets; the kind the tracker teams were likely to use if they saw fit.
With the group moving at a leisurely stroll, she checked over her shoulder again. The road wound its way back west through the plains and distant hills. She knew that Topkapi was perhaps 30 kilometers back in that general direction. The others in her class were probably being herded through the usual physical routines and scheduled classes. The rest of Team 4 was likely conducting individual fireteam drills back in the combat simulation center. Considering what the review board had to say, or what one of them said, that would be the number one setting for her failings to show.
This time would be different. Different because she wasn't there.
There was no chance that the instructors didn't notice four members of Team 4 were missing. White would be the first to become aware of it. He would not be the first to report it however. That was probably why the tracker teams were taking so long to find them, because unlike past escapees, they had an ally working behind the lines.
:********:
"If I could give you the chance to escape, would you take it?"
Carisa sat dumbfounded in her chair. She peered over at Brett, Andy and Giana to see if they'd heard the same thing. Apparently, they had and it showed. They shared the same wide-eyed look that registered the shock of what was just asked of them.
White was the only one taking himself seriously and he waited for an answer. It was that dead seriousness that made Carisa realize he wasn't pulling their legs.
"Why are you asking us this, sir?" Carisa questioned. "Is this part of the test too? To see if we're loyal? Why would we say 'yes' if that's obviously not what we're supposed to say?"
"What were the rules I set?" White shot back.
"That there are no wrong answers." Brett replied.
"There you go. Now answer it."
Carisa hesitated; her mouth gluing shut. It was a loyalty test, she thought, it had to be. Brett and Andy also sat quiet in their shared uncertainty.
At last, Giana spoke. "I'd take it."
Carisa ogled her as she sat upright, matching White's stare with her own.
"Gi, what're you-"
"I'm passing the test." Giana said. "This isn't about loyalty, is it, sir?"
White smiled and shook his head.
"I thought so. It's not loyalty you're looking for. Its honesty, am I right?"
"That's correct."
Carisa blanked out. She was too stunned to think for a second. She mulled over her session in front of the review board, how Mahmud had asked her a similar question and what her answer was. Not affirming, not specific, not definitive. A simple 'I don't know'. She realized Giana was much better suited for ONI than her, and yet here she was ready to leave all of that behind.
"Why?" Carisa queried. "Why're you asking us this?"
"Answer my question and I'll answer yours." White said and turned to the twins. "What will it be? Would you like to stay or would you like to go?"
Brett shuffled about in his seat, shrinking away from his prior confidence. He mumbled out a tentative answer of his own that was quickly overruled by his excited brother.
"Yes!" Andy shouted. "Hell yes! Yessir, I want out."
"Really?"
"Yup." Andy put his hand to his mouth and pretended to whisper. "And between you and me, I've been waiting for a chance to say something like this for years."
"Uhuh. You're a brave one, aren't you, 186?"
He shrugged. "Call me Andy. Honestly, I'd like to get out just so people other than my brother here would actually call me by my name. Sometimes I even forget it where it's been so long. Plus you turned off all the surveillance stuff in the room so I figured it was okay to bring this up." He leaned over and nudged his brother. "It's like the little therapy session we've been waiting for, right Bretty?"
Brett looked away. "...Yeah...like therapy, yeah that's...what it is..."
"Hey, what's wrong?"
Brett sighed. "Look, I don't know if I think the same way as you about this, And'."
"What do you mean?"
Brett peered around to the others. "When they brought us here from home, we came knowing we didn't have any family left. Dad was dead. So was mom. All our aunts and uncles too. They were all in on it, blowing up that CAA building. They left us behind when they did it, thinking we'd be alright." He paused to wrap his arms around himself. "But what's so okay about blowing yourselves sky-high and not caring what'll happen to your own kids, you know? What's okay about that? The ONI guys had to tell us what happened just for us to find out about it, remember?"
Andy gritted his teeth at him. "Hey, listen, they told us that just to get us on the ship. The same went for everybody else, the ones they bothered explaining things to anyway. And how's that worked out for us, Bretty?"
"It worked out pretty okay, I'd say." Brett hissed. "Better than it would've if we'd stayed on Venezia. We actually have something like family here, people who care. How many times did S-3 get us out of a rough spot in training? How many times did S-2 share his lunch when we got to the chow hall too late because you decided to spend a crap-ton of time staring at that wall? We never bothered to try the things you said we could. I always thought you were joking, because we always came back with the others, since we have a home here. And now you really want to leave them behind the way our folks left us? How's that okay? Newsflash, Andy: it's not."
"Yeah? Then why don't you-"
Andy stopped as White held up a hand. "Remember you two, there are no wrong answers. You've both stated your opinions. However opposed they might be, they are both valid. One of you wants to stay, the other wants to go. Respect that."
Andy sat back in his seat, grumbling, as did Brett.
White turned to Carisa. "What about you? Which side do you fall on, 108?"
Carisa bit her lip. "I-...I-"
The others turned to her as well.
"I don't know, sir."
Brett looked relieved, Andy less so. Giana seemed conflicted.
White tapped his chin curiously. "You're not sure you want to leave?"
"No sir, I'm not."
White glanced at Giana. "Not even if your big sister is of the same mind to go?"
Confusion. That was Carisa's first emotion, then more of the same, building up until it was torn down by the revelation of what White had actually said. She froze, outwardly surprised and yet inwardly shocked, albeit for a different reason. She glimpsed Giana sitting like a mirror reflection of herself, just as confused and just as suddenly comprehending. The two slowly made eye contact. Neither was ready to say a word.
"It's not that hard to see." White said. "The only ones here that probably look more alike are 185 and 18-, Brett and Andy. I thought you would have connected the dots for yourselves by now, no?"
"I-" Giana stuttered. "I-, I mean ye-, well, no-…"
"What, you thought it was a coincidence that you looked so similar, came from the same city and wound up in the same position?" He paused. "That you both lost your father in the same way at the same time?"
Giana went silent.
Carisa had little to react about. She never knew the man. However, she noticed that White had said 'father' rather than 'fathers'. She perked up. "You mean to say that we have the same dad?"
White nodded. "Ruiz Falton."
Giana stiffened at the mention of the name. Carisa could tell it was pulling her team-leader into some unwanted memories, and not only her.
A small projection screen blinked into being above White's hand. Carisa spotted two images on it: the frontal and side profiles of a bald man in his 30s. She noted his olive skin, the deep set dark-brown eyes steeped in mild disinterest, the goatee framing his lips. Text strobed by underneath his pictures.
"Businessman turned Insurrectionist cell leader," White continued. "Mr. Ruiz Falton led a double life working at his company after he was radicalized by an employee that was trying to convince him to join the cause for months."
Another image appeared next to the first. It was another report possessing frontal and side profiles of a woman with dark hair, almond-like eyes and a pronounced jawline. Not that Carisa needed to notice any of that to recognize her own mother. She felt her stomach tighten, marveling at how young she looked, maybe in her mid-20s. Did that mean she was involved with the Insurrectionists so early on?
"From that face you're making I guess you know who this is?" White asked.
"Of course." Carisa replied, hoarse. "She was the one that pulled my-, Giana's dad to the side of the rebels? I always thought it was the other way around."
Before White could answer, Giana stepped in. "Wait. You know this woman? How?"
Carisa swallowed. "She's...also my mom."
Giana returned to her previous silence, no longer daring to take her eyes off of Carisa.
White flipped through the two reports to the parts he was looking for. "It might surprise you to know, Giana, but not you, Carisa, that your father was involved in two intimate relationships at the same time. The first was with your mother, Giana, which was the official one, wedding ring and all. The second was with yours, Carisa, which was the unofficial one. You two were born from separate spheres of Ruiz Falton's life which he kept so well separated that you two never find out about each other until now. It seems your mothers might have also played their part in keeping you out of the loop."
Carisa's gaze wandered to the pictures of her mother. Through them, she recalled the many times she was told that her father was too busy to see them. He was always off somewhere else, never so close that she could find him but always near enough for her to see what he did to others. Her attention settled on his pictures next.
So this was him.
She peeked at Giana who was still trying to think her way through it.
So this was the family he chose.
"Can I ask a question about this, sir?"
"Go ahead, 108"
The idea of asking where her mom was wouldn't leave her alone. A part of her wanted to know. A different part thought her conscience would rest easier if she never found out.
"If my mom was an Insurrectionist, why did I never see her leave to go the places my dad went?"
"Ah, this might be a bit harsh on you, and harsher than I wanted it to be, but intelligence from an informant suggests that she was removed from the cell she was working with. Your dad kicked her out after he rose up enough of the ranks to become leader."
"And why'd he do that?" Carisa pressed.
White sucked in a breath. "Because he found out that she was pregnant. Though she wasn't excommunicated completely, he deemed her a liability to their operations. He had her removed so that she could raise their daughter." He took a moment to observe Giana. "His second daughter, your sister."
Giana said nothing.
Carisa was fast to make the connection, far faster than she wanted to be. She realized she had asked a question that she would never have wanted the answer to.
"Any other questions?" White asked.
"Yeah actually, sir." Brett said, standing up. "What're you going to do with us who answered 'no'."
"Well, so far it's only you that's given me a solid 'no'. I'll still respect your decision. I'll also have to ask you to leave at this point so I can talk to the ones who said otherwise."
"Wait-wait, hold on, but what are you going to do to them? Are you-"
"I can't tell you that, Brett." White said more forcefully. "What I'll have to ask you to do is leave now and never speak of this to any of the other candidates or instructors. For my sake and your brother's, this should be kept between us."
"Yeah." Andy grinned. "This is top-secret, so why don't you get going?"
"Be-, because" Brett sniffled. His eyes glazed over. Andy saw it and his grin vanished.
Brett rounded on the instructor. "I want to change my answer. What if I said 'yes'? What would you say then, sir?"
"I would say 'stay where you are and listen to what I have to tell you'."
"There's no one else here. The room's locked down, right? I wouldn't say anything, even if you did do something, because my brother's involved in this too. What do you have to lose?"
White looked him over from head to toe. "A potential opportunity to help more kids like yourselves escape a lifetime of service that they never asked for."
There was silence for a full second.
Brett squinted at him. "What're you talking about, sir? We were asked if we wanted to come here and we came."
"Yes. You're part of the very small minority of children that they actually asked. It might surprise you to know how recent that practice is in the program's history."
"...Th-, they told us what we were going to do before we left. We knew."
White shook his head. "No, they didn't. They gave you pieces, snippets and idealizations, never the whole picture itself of what you'll be doing. I know what you'll do when you're done here and that's because I've done it myself. I've lived the life you four are living through today, so believe me, I would know."
Brett went quiet. The shock of the conversation shut him down but reanimated Giana. "What do you mean by that, sir, that you 'lived the life we're living'?"
White smirked at her. He waved off the digital reports and the projections vanished, leaving them face to face. "Because I'm also a Janissary. Fully fledged, like you'll be if you stay."
The guilt gnawing away at Carisa's gut cooled to an icy disturbance, then erupted into fiery intrigue. She willed her unwieldly mouth to open. Giana beat her to it.
"H-, how?"
"Think about it. You're a part of Class IV. That means there were at least three other classes before yours, three previous generations that have already graduated and been long deployed into the service. Mine's was Class III."
"A J-III?" Carisa murmured.
"Correct. Many of the instructors here were also part of the same class. Lutgens, Patstone, even Mahmud, most of us are from the same pipeline you're going through now as J-IVs in training." He scratched his whitening hair. "We were kids once, believe it or not. It was the same for our instructors from Class II, and theirs from Class I. What you perhaps didn't know is that so long as you're in the program, you're taking part in an intergenerational heritage of sorts. The passing down of knowledge and skills from one age to the next. The third, my group, is the one currently in charge of passing on the torch to yours. Soon you'll be doing the same to the J-V's."
He stopped to laugh to himself. "Or maybe not. In reality, there are candidates with grievances like yours in every generation." He leaned back and hefted his boots onto his desk. "I should know. I used to be one of them. I complained all day every day about wanting to leave this place." He gestured to Brett. "On the other hand, I never wanted to leave, because I thought what I had here was all there was for me after what happened to my own parents." He nodded to Andy. "Know that you're far from the first to have these feelings. Understand that you're also not the first that I've reached out to and smuggled out of Topkapi. Successfully, I might add. And yes, I have been doing this for a while now."
The twins and the sisters stared, unmoving. Carisa knew that they each sensed it: the cat that had just been let out of the bag. The instructor had let them in on something too big to ignore.
Of the four of them, Brett found the strength to step forward. He was trembling, streaming tears, his hands balled into fists. "Why're you doing this? Why're you putting this on us? Don't you know how much trouble we could get into if the other instructors find out what you're doing?"
White's relaxed demeanor evaporated almost instantly. The glare from before returned, the one Carisa remembered from that day in the medical center. This time it was aimed at Brett. Its intensity quickly disarmed his frustrations and he took a step back.
"You mean what we're doing." White corrected.
With that, Carisa felt an invisible door slam shut on her life.
Brett staggered back. "We're?"
"Why do you think I asked you my first question? Did you honestly believe I would pose it and not have the means to carry it out?"
"Well, if you can, why didn't you escape yourself when it was your turn?"
White exhaled and pointed to Andy. "Because I didn't have anyone there to encourage me to leave, like what you have." He pointed to Giana. "Because I didn't have anyone that could guide me along the way, like you have, Carisa. Those two things weren't in place. I knew plenty of people who tried but none that got very far. Either the tracker teams found them first or the environment did, but I don't think any ever made it. Not one. Because they didn't have anyone like me to give them what they needed to survive. Supplies. Maps. Information. It's part of the reason I came back here to be an instructor. I wanted to give more kids like me a better chance to get out of this place than the one I had. The reason you guys can make it is because you have a man behind the lines. So, here's a second test. Question one: do you think you can trust that man? Question two: do you think you can trust each other to have your backs out there?"
Carisa observed each of them. They looked no more certain than she was. She caught Giana watching her from the corner of her eye and could feel her thinking the same question as Brett and Andy probably were.
Then she remembered how she walked out of her barracks that evening. She saw the western gate in her mind. A short run, a basic climb and a life to be lived elsewhere.
White was saying he could make things even easier.
At first, she wondered how she could have said anything at all. Now she wondered how it could have taken her this long to say what she finally managed to blurt out: "Yes".
:********:
The diminishing heat and the arriving cold were making her rethink that.
This was their second day out in the wild and almost two weeks since White had shown them his plan. Two weeks to prepare, two days to see the results. Under his guidance, they were able to sneak out of their barracks in the middle of the night and steal away to the wall. As White had promised, there was a section of the gate that was unelectrified. They waited for the closest patrol to pass before they vaulted the fencing and moved out into the wilderness.
Their first checkpoint was a supply cache hidden a kilometer away inside a cave. They each pulled out a rucksack from the shadows, inside of which were bottles of water, MREs and other survival equipment. The best part was the pair of M6 pistols and MA5K carbines packed in with the gear. A few magazines and clips of TTRs were reassuring to have on hand, although Andy argued that White should have given them the real deal. Carisa understood why he hadn't. He was aiming to avoid any serious casualties on either side if they ran into a tracker team.
Despite the rationale, Andy kept up the complaints. As the dawn of the first day found them rucking their way east, his complaints made a noticeable shift from the tracker teams to whatever else they might run into along the way. Giana wasn't having any of it. She scolded him for being a chicken on the night of the first day then ignored him outright at the dawn of the second. She kept it up while she checked the datapad gifted to them by White in one hand, keeping her pistol drawn with the other. She was inspecting the geography of the map the instructor said would lead them to safety. Carisa struggled to remember it every time because it was hard to believe someone would decide to give a place such a name. In the middle of her thoughts, it came to her: 'Broken Hill'. It was a small mining town turned city that lay on Australia's old southern frontier. To get there, they would need to travel northeast to a mountain with a name Carisa also found odd. It tickled her funny bone just to think about, but then again, perhaps in the indigenous language, 'Umberumberka' meant something serious.
From Topkapi to the plains, from the plains to the mountain, from the mountain to Broken Hill and from Broken Hill to freedom.
'Freedom'. The word was simultaneously exciting and frightening. Carisa tried to avoid meditating too long on what it might look like. On the one hand, no early wake-ups, harsh drills and morning runs. On the other hand, there were a lot of faces she knew she would miss. They would have to go on without her and without the rest of the escapees. She hoped they could forgive her for abandoning them. Better yet, that they would follow their example and try to get out too.
But what of her life once the group reached Broken Hill? Would they break up and go their separate ways? Carisa had a hard time imagining what to do after that. Could she survive on her own? Could any of them? All this time spent walking with nothing to do but think was getting to her. Thoughts crept into her mind that brought up the idea of going back. If she did, she would be in for a world of trouble, but at least she could be sure of the days ahead. Training, learning, working towards a final goal, even if it was to serve ONI, seemed an easy burden to bear. Easier than making a whole new life from scratch.
It was that ease she was leaving behind that made her look back so often to the west. To Topkapi. Compared to the daily exhaustion, the physical and mental suffering of her daily life, the true torture came with each silent step that put more distance between her and the one place she could call home. She looked ahead to the others wondering if they were thinking the same thing.
No.
She shook her head clear. The daily torture, the literal suffering, were the exact reasons why she needed to leave. Her memories of life outside were hazy but not so blurred as to make her think captivity was the better option. The years of indoctrination, because she was certain that that was exactly what it was, would have to be walked off one step and one day of freedom at a time.
"Ow, ow, ow."
Carisa looked to Brett. His limping had become more pronounced since last she paid attention to him. He was relying more on his right leg to compensate for the damage done to his left earlier in the day. A single misstep on some uneven ground was threatening everything. It forced them to match his speed so as not to leave him behind. He'd told them he would be fine. Now this.
Brett took another step and accidentally put too much weight on the bad leg. "OOoowwww", he howled before it gave out from under him. He fell down and grabbed at the limb, hissing through his teeth at the pain.
"Hold up." Giana said, bringing them to a stop. They quickly regrouped on Brett. Carisa manned the south, Andy the north, while Giana checked on their downed teammate.
"It's nothing." Brett groaned.
Giana ignored him and pulled off his boot then the sock underneath. She held up his foot and spotted the darkening skin around the base of his heel.
Andy peeked over. "What's he got?"
"A sprain ankle." Giana said.
"Crap. Bretty, you could've sprained anything else, why that?"
Giana set down her rucksack and slipped her hand into one of its compartments. She pulled out a small med-kit and withdrew a few wipes to clean the surface.
"Just shut it," Brett bayed. "I didn't ask for this, okay? I didn't think the roads were this bad. How was I supposed to know?"
"We didn't know either, Bretty. We used our eyes. Why don't you try that next time you decide to tag along?"
Giana took out an anti-inflammatory ointment and started applying it.
"What? You'd rather I'd stayed back at Topkapi? I came to help you out. Did you forget that? I didn't want to come, but since I couldn't stop you, I figured it would be better if I gave you some back-up."
Andy fixed him with a scowl. "Why'd you think that? Look where we are now, on the run and treating you because you can't run anymore. And who's supposed to carry you around, huh? Who?"
Giana slipped a temperature regulating compression sleeve around the base of the foot. Beside her, Brett was seething. His anger simmered and soon he was biting back tears. He slammed his fist into the dirt. "We shouldn't have come out here. We shouldn't be here right now."
"Maybe you shouldn't, but I'm right where I want to be." Andy growled. "You go back if you want. I'm getting out of here."
Brett winced like he'd been shot by a bullet. "I was trying to help you!"
"Oh yeah!? And look who's the one needing help!"
"Shut up!" Giana roared. "Both of you, shut up. You think arguing like this is helping?"
Neither said a word.
"No? Neither do I. So lock that down and save it for later. Right now, we need to move."
The twins gave each other a long glare before looking away. As Giana focused on the final treatments, Carisa was left to consider whether the actual injury here would ever be mended. A lot was said. She wasn't sure what could be taken back. The tension was there since White's meeting and it had gotten a chance to rear its head again. It wasn't the only tension in the group either. Whereas the brothers were willing to let theirs out in the open, the sisters were less than willing to show theirs. Like the twins, their problem had also started at White's meeting. Neither of them was willing to bring it up in the last two weeks. Tiptoeing around it, and around each other, seemed to be a better strategy than the twins' near brawl. For how long though?
Carisa turned away feeling heavy. She refocused on the south. Seeing nothing as usual, she decided to give the west some long deserved attention.
Two small objects glinted in the distance. They were airborne. Squinting at them made it clearer what they were. The glints were the evening light reflecting off the cockpits of a pair of AV-14 Hornets. The search and reconnaissance aircraft were flying right towards them.
Carisa quickly gauged their speed and realized they only had seconds to hide. The roar of their turbojets washed over the landscape ahead of them and reached the others before Carisa could get a word out.
"Cover!" Giana ordered as she threw Brett over her shoulder and hurled them both into the underbrush. Carisa and Andy were closer to the other side and bolted into the shrubs there. The group slipped beneath the bushes, pulling in arms and legs to shrink their profiles from above.
They waited.
The thrum of the engines drew closer, eventually drowning out every other sound. The wind picked up and rustled the leaves around them. Amidst the swaying of greens, Carisa spotted a hole in the ground right next to her. A shock of fear coursed through her brain at what she thought were several skeletal fingers, long and hairy, reaching out from the darkness inside. Less than a hand's breadth away, the sunlight filtering through the leaves gleamed off eight dark orbs. By the time she realized they were actually eyes, the furry digits of the giant tarantula skittered into the hole. She'd almost put her hand right into its burrow, right on top of it. She swallowed down the overwhelming desire to scream and forced herself to look elsewhere.
The sound of the turbojets reached a high pitch. Outside the bushes, a shadow flashed across the ground. Another followed. They came and passed just as quickly. The sounds grew distant.
Carisa exhaled. She caught a relieved grin from Andy and returned it.
Then the sounds came back. The engines grew louder and closer. Carisa tensed once the shadows returned. However, rather than flying off again, they drew lower to the ground and began to circle above them.
"Did they find us?" Andy whispered.
"I don't know. Wait,...you hear that?"
Andy listened in. In the opposite shrubs, Giana and Brett were tuning in too. There was another sound besides the Hornets. The distinctly vacillating thrum of hydrogen-injected combustion engines, the crunch of wheels bouncing down the terrain. They turned west. Far off, a small dirt cloud was coming down the road, speeding ahead like comet trails around the wheels of three Warthogs. They bounced and bounded up and down the uneven parts of the road. The movement jostled the Army troops riding inside who busied themselves scanning the forward area with rifles and turrets.
Carisa's mind went to work. They were looking at a tracker team of nine troopers 100 meters away. They were accompanied by a pair of Hornets running forward reconnaissance at least 20 meters overhead.
Andy brought up his carbine beside her. "How'd they find us? Aren't we pretty far out of their search area by now?"
Carisa shrugged. "I guess not. This whole place is their backyard. They'd know it better than we would. They might be using thermals to-"
She stopped the moment Andy patted her on the shoulder and pointed to the road. To the single boot lying in the middle of it. The one Giana had taken off of Brett and forgotten to put back on.
Giana saw it too and looked to be cursing herself for the mistake.
"Guess that's how they found us." Andy said. "What do we do?"
Carisa pulled out her pistol. They couldn't run or they would be spotted from above, probably shot with tranquilizers and dragged back to base. They couldn't stay in place or they would risk being discovered by the groundside team, probably shot with tranquilizers and dragged back to base. She weighed their options and found both of them wanting.
On the other side, Giana held up two fingers, pointed at her and Brett and then at the Hogs. She pointed two more fingers at Carisa and Andy before pointing at the Hogs again.
Carisa nodded back.
"Is she serious?" Andy muttered.
Carisa understood what she was getting at. If they pulled it off, things were about to move a whole lot faster than anyone could have hoped for.
"Just make sure you don't miss."
"No worries." Andy said as he scooted away, reorienting himself at an angle to the road. "I only have to aim for the cracks in their gear, right? It's that easy, right?"
Carisa sensed the sarcasm in his voice. For their sake, she hoped it was that easy. The TTRs' anesthetic effects were poignant when it came to their training armor. Real UNSC Army BDUs were a whole different story.
Her hope was soon put to the test. The tracker team hit the brakes five meters out. They crawled towards the boot at a cautious pace. The troopers were more alert, the turrets swiveling from one side to the next, always covering their flanks. Carisa set her sights on the head of the gunner on the lead Hog. She could see the wariness in his suspicious and unprotected face. No visor, no problem.
The Hogs ground to a halt directly in front of the boot.
The troopers in the front seats hopped out to watch the surrounding area. The closest pair treaded lightly towards the fallen article.
Out the corner of her eye, Carisa saw Giana hold up three fingers while taking aim herself. Brett was prone beside her in a position mirroring his brother. Giana counted off. Three...two...
Giana fired first, squeezing a round into the eye of the first trooper then the second. While they were in mid-fall, Carisa shot the lead gunner square in the face. Controlled bursts from the carbines found their mark and the other two gunners were struck. All three were thrown clear of their turrets, hitting the ground at the same time as the two upfront.
Five casualties in under two seconds.
The shock of the moment passed and one of the last four shouted "AMBU-" Giana silenced him with a mouthful of TTR that sent him spiraling to the ground.
Carisa honed in on the final three as they retreated behind the rear Hogs. So did the twins and they unleashed a rhythmic stream of fire, pinning the three behind the wheels. Two of them fired back with assault rifles. Carisa ducked as a burst of hot lead swatted the leaves above her. They were shooting over where they expected them to be, suppression fire. She saw the ploy and spotted the third trooper as he ran to the back of the nearest Hog. He leapt onto the gun and started wheeling it towards Giana's position. Andy saw it too and risked moving his head into the path of the bullets to get a clear shot. Ignoring the branches snapping overhead, he got off a burst into the gun-arm of the one shooting their way. The trooper dropped his rifle to grasp at his stunned limb. It freed Andy to pivot to his friend on the turret and beat him to the trigger. The first three rounds pinged off the protective gun palisade. Before the rotating barrels could get their say, a follow-up burst uppercut the gunner and knocked him off the vehicle.
Carisa was already focused on revenge for the close shave. She shot a round into the knee of the guy that had fired at her, kicking him down onto all fours. He screamed; his face exposed. She fired again. The splattering impact blew his helmet clear off his head in a spray of red polymer. Even as he collapsed, the last trooper swung out from behind a Hog and shot at her. Instead of the crack of bullets, she heard the distinct thick-thick-thick of tranquilizer darts landing around her. She took aim but found her opportunity seized by the others who finished off the trooper with a combined hail of TTRs. He folded in on himself like a chair and collapsed, pockmarked in red ooze.
"They're down!" Andy said.
"Move-move-move!" Giana ordered.
The four of them scrambled out from the shrubs. They disregarded the chance to collect more meaningful weapons from the downed troopers. Hearing the Hornets still hovering nearby, they moved for the vehicles instead. Giana shouldered Brett into the passenger side of the lead Hog and hopped into the driver's seat. Andy and Carisa moved for the second. Andy slipped behind the wheel while Carisa took shotgun. She eyed the turret, thought of getting behind it then remembered none of them were tall enough yet to even man them properly. The Hornets circling them on their left and right made her wish they were.
"Andy, your carbine!"
Andy tossed her his MA5K, smirking. "Careful, its loaded!"
"It better be!" She tracked one of the Hornets in its flight and gauged its distance at 50 meters away and 20 meters above. It was well within range to see what had just happened to the ground team. She eyed the Class-2 launch systems on its underside and the rotary cannons on its wings. Those things could riddle them to pieces or blow them apart if they wanted to. She sighted in on the cockpit and made out the faint outlines of the pilots. "I've got eyes on the Hornet to our south!"
"I've got the one to the north!" Brett said. "We should get moving!"
At his words, the lead Hog's engine sprang into action.
"Ready!" Giana said. "Andy!?"
"Trying!"
Carisa peered back and saw Andy struggling with the ignition. "Hey, you know what you're doing, right!?"
"Of course I know! Like we didn't just have combat driving training! Relax, I got it!"
He continued to struggle. She looked closer and found their problem with the way he was turning the key. She returned to the Hornet which was now rotating west towards their rear. "It's counterclockwise, Andy, not clockwise!"
Though he didn't say anything, the car came to life a moment later.
"Let's go!" Giana hit the accelerator and shot forward. Andy came right on her heels, matching her speed. They barreled and bounced down the road, heading east. It wasn't long before the Hornets broke off from their rotation and gave chase.
Carisa kneeled in her seat, routinely peeking over the top of the Hog to observe. The Hornets were closing the distance between each other first while maintaining a solid pursuit speed. She suspected the two crews were communicating over what to do. Whatever their next move was, she figured they at least wouldn't fire at them. Their best strategy would be to keep following them and provide coordinates to other tracker teams. That meant they needed to find a way to lose them fast before they moved anywhere near their true destination. Carisa guessed that to be the reason why Giana was still taking them east, to lead them on.
Giana shouted to them over the clamor of the wheels. "Head's up, guys, here's the plan! Andy, head north! We'll go south! We'll split these two up to keep them from guessing where we're headed! Once we get a kilometer apart, we'll blind them with the 5Ks! Aim for their cockpits and thermal sensors, give them a good paint job, you copy!?"
"Solid copy!" Andy said.
Brett shouldered his carbine. "Hard to hit a moving target, you know! Especially one that hits back!"
"No worries!" Carisa said. "They won't kill us!"
"How do you know!?"
"Because they would've done it by now!"
Brett nodded. "Don't give'em too much credit! They might still change their minds! Giana, on your mark!"
"Three...two...MARK!"
Giana swerved right, Andy left. The Hog first shot off the road and into the vast tracts of shrubby plains, headed south. The second headed north.
As planned, the two Hornets reacted and split off. Both beamed after their respective quarry with a forward thrust. They were gaining.
Carisa surveyed the increasingly visible underside of the one coming after them. She singled out the observation equipment peeking out from the belly and lined up for a shot. Then she thought better of it and aimed at the cockpit. Going for the sensory equipment first would alert them to her real goal, giving them a chance to back off while they could still see out the window. She needed to prioritize her primary target, their main viewport.
At 100 meters from the road, the Hornet chasing Giana's Hog changed tact. The one pursuing Carisa mirrored its movements. They amped up their speed and soared past them before stabilizing to match the pace of the Hogs. They each made a 90-degree turn that lined up their rotary cannons with the oncoming path of their prey, flying along an adjacent course. A man's voice boomed over the aircraft's loudspeaker.
"STOP THE VEHICLE IMMEDIATELY, PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER. STOP NOW OR WE WILL FIRE ON YOU."
Carisa smirked at the cockpit. "Yeah!? Try it!"
The cannons fired.
She ducked back as a high-caliber cascade thundered across their path. The shots proved too wide and only kicked up dust. Carisa fired back with little effect. Uninterested in her return fire, the Hornet realigned itself with the front hood of the Hog.
"Andy!"
"On it!" Andy swerved hard to the left. His timing was perfect and more dust fountained into the air beside them. The Hornet readjusted and tried again. A rightward swerve from Andy gave them another near miss. But an accurate round blew through the windshield, shattering it across the dashboard. Carisa wiped the shards off her face and checked the rearview for Giana and Brett. Their Warthog was doing full serpentine maneuvers, slithering up clouds of dust behind them. They were almost 400 meters away. Only 100 more to go.
"That looks like a good idea!" Andy noted and began swerving in like fashion.
The Hornet moved to track them. Its rotary cannons barked and stitched a lane of fire across their path. A lucky shot blew out the turret's ammo belt, sending bullets crashing around the front. Carisa tossed away a casing that landed in her hair and set her sights back on the cockpit. She waited for the last 50 meters.
The Hornet was less patient. It momentarily slowed to track them. In the middle of Andy's shift to the right, the aircraft released a line of arcing fire that shadowed their maneuver. Several shots found their mark and punctured the tire. They thudded into the rubber but failed to seriously penetrate the tough nanotube skeleton. It tried again with greater success and Carisa heard a low pop from the right-forward tire.
"Hey, you mind!?" Andy called. "I think that's 500 meters!"
"Copy!" Carisa rose up and set her knee in the seat to balance herself. The Hornet came in on her side and rotated for a new attempt at the hood. She settled on the cockpit and fired. Two precise three-round bursts splattered part of the glass, coating it in polymer. Another obscured the outlines of the pilots. If she had a hard time seeing them, the same would apply vice versa. They immediately compensated by thrusting ahead of them. The craft went far to the north then circled back on an attack vector, now on a beeline for the vulnerable hood.
Carisa pulled herself to her feet and set the carbine atop the windshield. "Try not to turn too much! Just go straight!"
"You sure!?"
The Hornet's turbojets boomed and it rocketed towards them.
"Not really!"
The instant it was close enough, she squeezed the trigger. She focused on the parts of the viewport that were still clean, first painting out the corners with organized bursts then thumbing the firing mode to go full-auto on the unfinished front. By 20 meters, her work was finished and as the Hornet approached, it slowed from its attack run. It slugged to a stop while the Hog drove freely past.
Carisa looked back to make sure the craft was unmoving. "They're switching to their sensors! Andy, take us back!"
"Got it!" Andy hooked them back around and floored it to the south, headed towards the stilled aircraft. It refused to move even as they reached within range and began to circle it from below. Carisa seized the opportunity to shoot the main body of the sensor equipment on its belly. The rounds pinged and ricocheted off the device. She tried again and the carbine responded in kind: 'Click'.
"Andy, magazine, now!"
"Can't! I need two hands for the wheel!"
The sensor equipment came online and she saw the observation lens twitch in her direction. She leaned over to Andy and reached into his pants pocket. She pulled out a magazine, dispensed the spent one and slapped in the new. She returned to the sensor and focused on the lens instead. Two succinct bursts struck it out, a third blew it clear off the device in a shower of sparks.
"We're done here!"
Andy took the hint and broke away to the south. Behind them, the Hornet remained still, turning here and there but flying utterly blind. The hardening polymer would render it useless for a long time.
Carisa checked on the wheel that was hit. The holes in it looked shallow and the deflation from the air loss was barely visible, good enough for them to keep going. She spied Giana's Hog heading towards them. Their Hornet remained further south. It drifted lazily in the air, its cockpit obscured in crimson. Much relieved, Carisa relaxed while they converged on the road.
"Think they'll send another team!?" Andy shouted over.
"Probably!" Brett said. "Especially after this!"
"Actually, we've got another problem!" Giana said. "I got a chance to think about it a few minutes ago! These Hogs, they probably have tracking devices planted in them! I don't know where they might be exactly but I know ONI!"
Andy grimaced. "Oh come on, you're saying we still have to leg it to Broken Hill!?"
"Only if we don't want the trackers to know exactly where we are!"
Carisa could see ONI doing something like that. She merely wished they could have kept the Hogs. Having them would have made the rest of the trip much less of a hassle. She gave Andy a friendly elbow in the shoulder. "Suck it up, Andy. We can do it."
Andy looked at her and she recognized the worry in his gaze as it flitted to Brett. His brother was poker faced, almost resigned.
"Don't worry." She patted her driver on the back. "We'll figure something out."
Andy's grip tightened on the wheel. He said nothing but followed Giana as they slipped off the road and drove northeast. In the distance, the minor visage of a mountain loomed.
:********:
Mount Umberumberka looked like a long scab on the face of the continent. There was a constant rising and falling of ridges and valleys, some smooth slopes and just as many sharp declines. The geological trend changed at its southwestern corner where the Umberumberka Creek flattened out the rocky landscape. According to White's map, its marshy waters dried up with the incline of the mountain until it became an old creek bed that ran all the way past the very top. That would be their next rest point. They would need to use it for the night which was fast approaching.
The last rays of Sol graced their backs as they parked their Hogs along a dried riverbed near the base of the mountain. They dismounted and three of them moved for the slopes that lay right before the creek. One stayed behind.
Carisa noticed straight away as did Giana and Andy. They turned back to Brett. He met hobbled over to the front of the lead Hog. He pulled himself up and sat down on the hood.
For several seconds no one said a word. Then Brett sighed and pointed to the mountain. "You three should get going. It's getting late. Who knows how many hours you have before the trackers arrive. You'll need the rest."
"You're sure about this, Brett?" Giana asked.
He shrugged. "When have I ever been sure about anything we do? But I-, I feel a little surer of things at Topkapi though. I know they'll...take me back once they find me."
Andy stepped forward. "Bretty-"
"I can't go." Brett said, cutting him off "I can barely walk right. What makes you think I can keep running after you? No, I'm done."
"Brett."
"Like I said, I only wanted to help you guys get away."
"...You know there's consequences if they catch you."
"I know." He turned away from them and watched the last image of the sun preparing to dip out of view. The clouds of the pinkish purple sky drifted on by, pushed by a wind that ruffled his hair about his face as he gave them a pained smile. "I think I'll be okay."
The wind howled in the space between them. At its end, Carisa could feel the sting of the air drawing tears from her eyes. At least that was what she told herself it was. She rubbed them out and tried to give her squadmate a final salute. The best she could muster was a half-choked voice.
"Goodbye, Brett."
"Be seeing you." Giana said, seeming not too far off herself from the same feeling.
"Good luck you guys. I'm rooting for you."
Carisa and Giana took one last look at him before taking the first tentative steps up the slope.
Andy stayed put. He stared at his brother, wearing his grimace like a mask. He suddenly turned and started after them.
"Hey Andy?" Brett called
He stopped. "...Yeah?"
"Take care of yourself out there."
Carisa and Giana took a few more steps only to stop when they no longer heard Andy's. They turned back to see him standing there, his back to his brother. His body stiffened, his fists tightened, his shoulders drooped. His hardened demeanor intensified, rage boiled in his face and he looked ready to give someone a piece of his mind. But then his eyes glazed over, his body quaked and he began to cry.
A few sobs managed to escape his teeth before he gritted them shut. "Idiot." He murmured. "You stupid, dumb idiot. You moron."
Carisa couldn't tell whether he was speaking to Brett or to himself. Andy quickly wiped his face and returned to the same stoic expression. Yet there was an exhaustion to it that hadn't been there a second earlier.
Andy unslung the carbine from his back and inspected it. He took out four TTR magazines from his pockets and secured them in a compartment on the sling. "Hey, Caris?"
Carisa barely caught the weapon in time as he threw it up to her. She held it, shocked into silence. Andy rounded on his brother. "Bretty, toss me your gear."
A little confused, Brett still did what he was asked. He slipped his last three magazines into a similar compartment and tossed over the weapon. Andy caught it and tossed it along to Giana. She gawked at him. "What're you-"
"Give us your pistols." Andy said. "Just one full clip each should be enough for both of us. We'll need it in case any wild animals show up."
Though Giana was still taken aback, Carisa understood what he was trying to say. She put a new clip into her M6 and tossed it over. Giana gradually caught on and did the same.
"Thanks." A small smile managed to break through Andy's defenses. "You guys watch your backs out there, okay?"
Carisa was on the brink of falling apart. She kept it quiet. Still, like her squadmate, a tear escaped her calm façade. "We will. You two watch out for each other, alright?"
"Will do." Brett said, earning a grateful grin from his twin.
"We'll miss you guys." Giana admitted. "Maybe-, hopefully, somewhere, someway we'll see you again. You copy?"
"Copy." The two replied in unison.
Carisa and Giana nodded off to them. They returned to the ascent. Andy walked back down. Almost to the top of the slope, Carisa looked back. Andy had hopped onto the hood of the Warthog and sat down next to Brett. She smiled and turned to follow Giana to the creek.
Vinculum – Bond
